Manoa Falls

This past Sunday we got the chance to go on a beautiful hike to Manoa Falls! It's about 15 minutes from our place... just a short 2 mile hike but it is well worth it!!

Our excitingly boring life!

It's been a while since I updated.  

Does anyone read this anyway?  Oh well...  I thoroughly enjoy reminiscing on my excitingly boring life anyway!

Living in Hawaii is great.  And dreadful.  It's a definite love/hate relationship.  It's just not something you can understand until you've actually lived here... 

Mike and I did some quick math today and figured out that it takes us longer to drive the 8 miles to and from work than it would someone driving northbound from Salt Lake City to Ogden during rush hour (that's 22 miles..) 

Many hours a day I am stuck in traffic, cursing 'this rock'

BUT everyday is an adventure, because I am with my best friend!  Even though there's some hard stuff and unique challenges we face, I have never been happier.  And I'm thankful for smokin' hot man who never ceases to make me laugh!

Here are a few little adventures as of late... 

For our 8 month anniversary, we went to Jose's Mexican Restaurant.  This is the only Mexican restaurant I have even seen on the island.  It wasn't Utah mexican, but it was still SO DELICIOUS.  Oh my goodness it's been a long while since we've gotten our fix of tasty Mexican. 

As you can see, Mike was... excited

Okay, let's be honest, I was too.

AND Mike surprised me with a set of knives for our kitchen.. and they are freakin SWEET.  I have been complaining because we only have these crappy knives and it takes me FOREVER to chop food with.  NOT ANYMORE!  I love that Mike pays attention to what I whine about and makes it better. :)

Since I had a brand new set of knives, I found a sweet stuffed green pepper recipe and got cookin!  It was pretty tasty if I do say so myself... 

I do love cooking!  One of my favorite things.

Oh, and a sad note of the week... my friend Kali is moving back to the mainland.. I will miss her! She was my visiting teacher and introduced me to MENCHIES (aka the best frozen yogurt place EVER)

As a going away party some of the girls in the ward got together and we went to the cheesecake factory.

I will miss Kali!!

Another fun adventure of the week was cooking hamburgers with my patient at work..

and burning the burgers...

and setting off the fire alarm... 

and panicking...

Luckily they are cool and we were all laughing!

My Hawaiian Grandma trying to save our dinner... 

Today Mike showed me a really cool beachy place.  Apparently it was where his work party was, which I couldn't go to because I was working.. lame.

Oh, and we saw a Navy sub going by! It was sick!

There you have it!  Everything happening in life. SO EXCITED FOR CHRISTMAS! 

Only one week away!

Mele Kalikimaka!

Rise Up!

This weekend was incredible!

Despite getting off to a rough start Friday morning... car problems, figuring out transportation, minor meltdown... Things got a lot better for the weekend!  I made it to my patients house and was able to help her get ready.  She knows how much I love BYU football, and as I was leaving she said, "Oh yeah, enjoy the game!  I really hope BYU wins."  Her son (who happens to be a huge Hawaii Warriors fan) gave her the most traitorous (is that a word?  I think it should be a word.) look I have ever seen.  Oh I loved it!

I went to my next patients house after, and he was excited for me too.  He even saved me the sports section of the Honolulu paper because it had some spotlights with BYU players in it.  It made my day!

Friday night we went to a special fireside.  We made the long journey to Makakilo with Brooke, a cute girl in our ward!  We had fun chatting the whole way out there.

The fireside featured the BYU football team and Coach Mendenhall.  It's so crazy to think that that's how my football players are getting ready for the game the next day... by sharing their testimonies and how football has built them.  One of the linebackers (La'haina) sang, "I Heard Him Come."  He played the piano/sang at the same time and it was so beautiful - it was incredibly spiritual.

Funny post-fireside story... So the players sign autographs for 20 minutes after the fireside, right?  So I wanted to get my Y bag signed, but I didn't want some secondary who I didn't really know who they were to sign it.  So I went up to one of the players, and this is the conversation that ensued..

                                                      Me:  'Hey, is Heaps here?'
                                                      Player: 'Oh, Jake?  No he couldn't make it tonight.'
                                                      Me:  'Oh yeah? What about Nelson?'
                                                      Player: 'Riley couldn't be here either.'
                                                      Me: 'Oh dang.  Well thanks anyway.' ... walked off, leaving random
                                                              player with pen in hand...

Mike was laughing so hard... He gave me so much crap all night about it.  Yeah, oops.. that was probably kinda mean.  Oh well, I'm sure he gets it all the time.

The game... wait, you want me to use WORDS to describe the game?

It was euphoric.  We had to leave our section and go sit with the Y fans because I'm sure some rabid Hawaiian fan would murder me for cheering so loud.  Oh how I loved seeing my boys dominate on the field!  What a way to end the season!

Aloha Stadium

Nice eyes-closed shot... :D

The Cougs getting ready to play

What a great way to end the season... 40-21.  Go Cougs!!